The next half hour slipped by slowly. Artyom, not noticing the angry glances of the lookouts, endlessly turned the handle and listened to the music, Melnik whispered something to Anton, and the child played on the floor with his cartridge cases. The melody from the tiny music box was rather dreary, but charming in its own way. It was just impossible to stop.

‘No, I don’t understand,’ the stalker said and stood up from his seat. ‘If both tunnels have been brought down and are being protected, just where, in your opinion, do the people disappear to?’

‘And who said that it’s all in these tunnels?’ Anton looked him up and down. ‘And there are passages to other lines, two altogether, and lines to Smolenskaya… I think someone simply is making use of our superstitious beliefs.’

‘Just what superstitions!’ interrupted the lookout who had told them about the blowing up of the tunnel and the people who were left on the other side. ‘The curse of our station is that it stopped with Park Pobedy. And we all are damned that we live at it…’

‘And you, Sanych, are muddying the waters,’ Anton cut him short with displeasure. ‘Here the people are asking about serious things and you are spreading your tales about!’

‘Let’s take a walk. I saw some doors along the way and a side exit. I want to take a look,’ Melnik said to him. ‘The people are frightened at Smolenskaya, too. Kolpakov was personally interested.’

‘Well, now he has got interested, right?’ Anton smiled sadly.

‘They are even throwing questions at Polis already.’ The stalker pulled a folded sheet of newspaper from his pocket.

Artyom had seen such papers at Polis. At one of the passages stood a tray where it was possible to buy them, but they cost ten cartridges and paying so much for a sheet of wrapping paper with poorly printed gossip on it was not worth it. Melnik, it seemed, didn’t regret the cartridges.

Several short articles huddled under the proud name ‘Metro News’ on the roughly cut yellowish sheet. One of the pieces was even accompanied by a black and white photograph. The banner ran: ‘Mysterious Disappearances at Kievskaya Continue.’

‘The smokers are still alive, they say.’ Anton carefully took the newspaper in his hands and smoothed it out. ‘OK, let’s go, I’ll show you your side branches. Will you stop reading?’

The stalker nodded. Anton stood, looked at his son and said to him:

‘I’ll be right back. Look, don’t be naughty here without me,’ and, turning toward Artyom, asked, ‘Look after him, be a pal.’

There was nothing left for Artyom to do but nod.

As soon as his father and the stalker had gone a bit further away, Oleg jumped up, took the box away from Artyom with a naughty look, yelled at him, ‘Catch me!’ and broke into a run towards the dead end. Recalling that the boy was now his responsibility, Artyom guiltily looked at the rest of the lookouts, lit his flashlight and went after Oleg.

He didn’t investigate the half-destroyed office facility, as Artyom feared he might. He was waiting right next to the blockage.

‘See what happens now!’ the lad said.

Oleg scrambled onto the stones, reached the level of the pipes and disappeared into the blockage. Then he took out his box, placed it against the pipe and turned the handle. ‘Listen!’ he said.

The pipe began to hum, resonating, and it was as if it all had been filled from within by the simple, doleful melody the music box was playing. The boy pressed his ear to the pipe and, as if bewitched, continued to turn the handle, drawing the sounds from the metallic box.

He stopped for a second, listening, smiled happily and then jumped down from the pile of stones and extended the music box to Artyom:

‘Here, try it yourself!’

Artyom was able to imagine how the sound of the melody would change as it passed through the hollow metal pipe. But the child’s eyes were so bright, that he decided not to behave like the ultimate pain in the neck. Leaning the box against the pipe, he pressed his ear to the cold metal and began to turn the handle. The music began to resound so loudly that he nearly jerked his head away. The laws of acoustics were not familiar to Artyom, and he was unable to understand by what miracle this piece of metal could so amplify the melody inside such a feebly tinkling box.

Turning the handle for several more seconds and playing the short tune a good three times, he nodded to Oleg:

‘It’s splendid.’

‘Listen again!’ he began to laugh. ‘Don’t play, just listen!’ Artyom shrugged and looked at the post to see if Melnik and Anton had returned, and once more placed his ear to the pipe. What could one possibly hear now? The wind? The echo of a scary noise that flooded the tunnels between Alekseeva and Prospect Mir?

From an unimaginable distance, making their way through the earth’s stratum with difficulty, came muffled sounds. They came from the direction of the dead Park Pobedy. There could be no doubt about it. Artyom stood stock still, listening, and, gradually becoming chilled, understood: he was listening to something impossible – music.

Someone or something several kilometres away from him was duplicating that melancholy melody from the music box one note after another. But this was not an echo: the unknown performer had erred in several places, shortened a note somewhere, but the motif remained completely recognizable. And, mainly, it was not at all a ringing chime, the sound resembled more of a hum… Or singing? The indistinct chorus of a multitude of voices? No, a hum all the same…

‘What, is it playing?’ Oleg asked of him with a smile.

‘Hush! I’m still listening! What is it?’ Barely parting his lips, Artyom mumbled hoarsely.

‘Music! The pipe is playing!’ the boy explained simply.

The melancholy, oppressive impression that this eerie singing produced in Artyom, it seemed, was not passed on to the lad. For him, it was simply a happy game, and he could never ask how he could hear a melody from a station cut off from the whole world, where all the living had vanished into thin air more than a decade ago.

Oleg again climbed up onto the stones, on the verge of preparing to start his little machine again, but Artyom suddenly felt inexplicably fearful for him and for himself. He grabbed the lad by the hand and, not paying any attention to his protests, dragged him back to the stove.

‘Coward! Coward!’ Oleg screamed. ‘Only children believe in these tales!’

‘What tales?’ Artyom stopped and looked him in the eyes.

‘That they take the children who go into the tunnels to listen to the pipes!’

‘Who takes them?’ Artyom dragged him closer to the stove.

‘The dead!’

The conversation stopped: a lookout speaking about damnation roused himself and gave them such a once over that the words stuck in their throats.

Their adventure had ended right on time: Anton and the stalker were returning to the post, and someone else was walking with them. Artyom quickly planted the boy in his seat. The child’s father had asked him to look after Oleg, and not to indulge in his whims… And who knew what superstitions Anton himself believed?

‘Excuse me, we’ve been delayed.’ Anton sank onto the sacks beside Artyom. ‘He wasn’t naughty, was he?’

Artyom shook his head, hoping that the lad had enough sense not to brag about their adventure. But he, it seemed, understood everything himself just fine. Oleg again laid out his cartridge cases with an enthralled look.

The third man who had arrived with Anton and the stalker, a balding, skinny man with sunken cheeks and bags under his eyes, was unfamiliar to Artyom.

He approached the stove only for a minute and nodded at the lookouts, and Artyom examined him closely, but he didn’t say anything to him. Melnik introduced him.

‘This is Tretyak,’ he told Artyom. ‘He’ll be going on ahead with us. He’s a specialist. A missile man.’